“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you do that for?"”

— Tim O'Brien, book The Things They Carried

and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man" and other guys start to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened.
The Things They Carried (1990), How to Tell a True War Story

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Tim O'Brien25

American novelist 1946

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